This is a guest post by Richard Armstrong who is an early stage investor in many startups in both SE Asia and globally. Plus Richard has cofounded several companies.
Guest Author: Richard Armstrong
Today I’d like to talk a bit about one of the portfolio companies we backed quite early called Platzi, which is now the largest tech school in the Spanish-speaking world.
Platzi raised a $62 million Series B back in late 2021 that included Y Combinator, 500 Startups and others.
Have you taken a cohort-based online learning course?
They’ve been all the rage the past few years. You signup for an online course and start with a bunch of others.
Part of the pitch is that you all go through the course together and therefore by learning together it creates bonds like in a physical classroom.
So for example if the online course goes for 8 weeks and is 2x per week… then you will see the same classmates in the sessions and interact with them during that period. It is this ‘community’ element that creates a lot of the value behind the course.
Because not only do you get educated but you grow your network in that niche, which is often just as valuable.
Here are some of the most popular cohort-based learning platforms.
But there is a major issue with cohort-based courses
The problem with this whole logic is what if you can’t make all the classes because you have other things going on at that time? Then you miss those classes and at best get to watch a recording of it.
But what if it didn’t have to be like that? What if you could take your course whenever you had free time BUT still get the same ‘community’ interaction component?
Because you can still interact with whoever is taking that class at that time.
This way you have a lot more flexibility. You can take the course a lot slower or faster than how it would be distributed as a cohort-based class.
And for many folks that take these online courses this is a major unlock. Because their schedules are unpredictable and they have jobs that sometimes conflict with the class schedule.
This new style of learning is really blasting off in Latin America.
Platzi is leading in this new way of taking courses
With Platzi you can take all kinds of classes in both hard skills like web development as well as in soft skills like emotional intelligence.
Over 2.5 million students have used the platform already.
And about 60% of Platzi’s students spend $300 per year to access the coursework. This is about a month of salary that they are investing in their education, which is not insignificant.
They are also applying AI in an interesting way
Platzi is now tailoring the courses to the industry niche that you are in. Which would be impossible if you were in a cohort-based course with folks from different niches, but works great in their model.
Imagine you are a product manager in e-commerce taking a product management course on Platzi. Instead of just generic materials, all of the course materials would be focused on e-commerce.
You’d read case studies of other e-commerce companies and even the quizes would be tailored for you.
This is impossible to do profitably without AI because it would require generating too much content. But AI makes it possible.
Parting thoughts
I’m a very big fan of this new way of taking courses. In part because it really suits my own busy lifestyle.
I’m traveling a lot, going to meetings at various times, and quite honestly if I took a cohort-based course I wouldn’t be surprised if I missed at least half of it.
And so there’s a good chance I’d finish the course feeling like I wasted my money. Which would likely lead to me not taking any further courses.
But with this new style of learning I don’t have to worry about that. I have full flexibility to learn whenever I want, do the course at my own speed, and meet some great folks in the process.
